Are we Ship's child?

That was a weighty question.

Slowly, she cast her gaze across the awed watchers. "Remember my orders!"

They nodded, but within only a few hours, it was all over Vashon: Ship had returned. Vata was awakening. Ship had ordered them all to go down under.

By nightfall, sixteen other Islands had the message via radio, some in garbled form. The Mermen, having overheard some of the radio transmissions, had questioned their people among the Vata watchers and sent a sharp query to the C/P.

"Is it true that Ship has landed on Pandora near Vashon? What is this talk of Ship ordering the Islanders to migrate down under?"

There was more to the Merman query but C/P Rocksack, realizing that Vata security had been breached, invested herself in her most official dignity and answered just as sharply.

"All revelations concerning Vata require the most careful consideration and lengthy prayer by the Chaplain/Psychiatrist. When there is a need for you to know, you will be told."

It was quite the curtest response she had ever made to the Mermen, but the nature of Duque's words had upset her and the tone of the Merman message had been almost, but not quite, of a nature to bring down her official reprimand. The appended Merman observations she had found particularly insulting. Of course she knew there could be no swift and complete migration of Islanders down under! It was physically impossible, not to mention psychologically inadvisable. This, more than anything else, had told her that Duque's words required another interpretation. And once more she marveled at the wisdom of the ancestors in combining the functions of chaplain with those of psychiatrist.

As he fell from the pier, the coracle's bowline whipping around his left ankle, Brett knew he was going under. He pumped in one quick breath before hitting the water. His hands clawed frantically for something to hold him up and he felt Twisp's hand rasp beneath his fingers but there was nothing to grip. The coracle, an anchor dragging him down, hit a submerged ledge of bubbly and upended, kicking him toward the center of the lagoon and, for a moment, he thought he was saved. He surfaced about ten meters from the pier and, over the howl of the hooters, he heard Twisp calling to him. The Island was receding fast and Brett realized the coracle's bowline had broken free of the dockside cable. He hauled in as much air as his lungs could grab and felt the line on his ankle pull him toward the Island. Doubling over underwater, he tried to free himself, but the line had tangled in a knot and his weight was enough to tug the coracle off the bubbly below the pier. He felt the line whip taut, dragging him down.

A warning rocket painted the water over him bloody orange. The surface appeared flat, the momentary calm ahead of a wavewall. Roiling water rolled him, the line on his ankle pulled steadily and he felt the pressure increase through his nose and across his chest.

I'm going to drown!

He opened his eyes wide, amazed suddenly at the clarity of his underwater vision - even better than his night vision. Dark blues and reds dominated his surroundings. The ache in his lungs increased. He held the breath tight, not wanting to let go of that last touch with life, not wanting that first gulp of water and the choking death behind it.

I always thought it would be a dasher.

The first trickle of bubbles squeezed past his lips. Panic began to pulse through him. A gush of urine warmed his crotch. He twisted his head, seeing the glow of the urine against him holding back the cold press of the sea.

I don't want to die!

His superb underwater vision followed the leak of bubbles upward, tracing them toward the distant surface, which was no longer a visible plane but only a hopeless memory.

In that instant, when he knew all hope was gone, a corner of his vision caught a dark flash, a flicker of shadow against shadow. He turned his head toward it and saw a woman swimming below him, her dive-suited flesh looking unclothed. She turned, something in her hand. Abruptly, the line of his ankle jerked once, then released.

Merman!

She rolled beneath him and he saw her eyes, open and white against a dark face. She slipped a knife into her leg sheath while she moved upward toward him.

The trickle of bubbles from his mouth became a stream, driving out of his mouth in a hot release. The woman grabbed him under an armpit and he saw clearly that she was young and supple, superbly muscled for swimming. She rolled over him. A white flash of oxygen despair began at the back of his head. Then she slammed her mouth against his and blew the sweet breath of life down his throat.

He savored it, exhaled, and again she blew a breath into him. He saw the airfish against her neck and knew she was giving him the half-used excess that her blood exuded into her lungs. It was a thing Islanders heard about, a Merman thing that he'd never expected to experience.

She backed off, dragging him by one arm. He exhaled slowly, and again she fed him air.

A Merman team had been working an undersea ridge, he saw, with kelp waving high beside it and lights glowing at the rocky top - small guide markers.

As panic receded, he saw that his rescuer wore a braided line around her waist with weights attached to it. The airfish trailing backward from her neck was pale and darkly veined, deep ridges along its length for the external gills. It was an ugly contrast to the young woman's smooth dark skin.

His lungs ceased aching, but his ears hurt. He shook his head, pulling at an ear with his free hand. She saw the movement and squeezed his arm hard to get his attention. She plugged her nose with her fingers and mimicked blowing hard. She pointed at his nose and nodded. He copied her and his right ear popped with a snap. An unpleasant fullness replaced the pain. He did it again and the left ear went.

When she gave him his next breath, she clung to him a bit longer, then smiled broadly when she broke away. A flooding sensation of happiness washed through Brett.

I'm alive! I'm alive!

He glanced past the airfish at the way her feet kicked so steadily, the strong flow of her muscles under the skin-tight suit. The light markers on the rocky ridge swept past.

Abruptly, she pulled back on his arm and stopped him beside a shiny metal tube about three meters long. He saw handgrips on it, a small steering rudder and jets. He recognized it from holos - a Merman horse. She guided his hand to one of the rear grips and gave him another breath. He saw her release a line at the nose of the device, then swing astraddle of it. She glanced backward and waved for him to do the same. He did so, locking his legs around the cold metal, both hands on the grips. She nodded and did something at the nose. Brett became conscious of a faint hum against his legs. A light glowed ahead of the woman and something snaky extruded from the horse. She turned and brought a breather mouthpiece against his lips. He saw that she also was wearing one and realized she was easing the double load the airfish had been forced to carry. The fish trailing from her neck and over his own shoulder appeared smaller, the gill ridges deeper and not as fat.

Brett gripped the mouthpiece in his teeth and pushed the lip cover hard against the flesh.

In by the mouth, out by the nose.

Every Islander had some sub schooling and parallel training with Merman rescue equipment.

Blow, inhale.

His lungs filled with rich, cool air.

He felt a lurch then and something bumped his left ankle. She rapped his knee and pulled him closer to her back, lifting his handgrips until they formed a brace against her buttocks. He had never seen a naked woman before and her dive suit left nothing for him to imagine. Unromantic as the situation was, he liked her body very much.